Monet

Chapter Two

We walked down the path to a little bakery. While walking I was finally able to see the rest of the village. There were little cottages lining the path. They were all roughly the same size but all different colors. Some were green with teal shutters and roof. Some were purple with bright pink roof and shutters. They reminded me of the round houses you would find at a beach.

It took us about fifteen minutes to get to the bakery. It would have only taken us about five minutes if I didn't decide to stop at little shop that had sketchbooks and graphite pencils in the window. I stood there gazing at them until Elias took my arm in his hand and pulled me along.

"I'm gonna guess you like drawing?" He asked, pulling me closer.

"Yeah I guess you can say that. I'm not any good at it though..." I drop my head and look at my use to be clean shoes. I might need to find somewhere that sells clothes. I look and see the bottom of my dress is tattered and no longer the sky blue as it was when I first ran off.

"Well it doesn't matter if you are any good, which I bet you are, but as long as you enjoy doing it, it really doesn't matter. So do you enjoy doing it?"

"Well yeah I do. A lot."

"Then that's all that matters. Oh look! The bakery!" He opened the door and let me go in first. "What do you want?"

"Um..."

He sighed and rolled his eyes before looking back at me and giggling. "Do you like chocolate muffins?"

"Yes actually I love them!"

"Good!" He turned to the person behind the counter and asked for two chocolate muffins. When he paid for them, we walked outside and sat under the tree next to the little shop. There was one more shop next to us and then the village ended. From the window it looked as if it was some sort of clothes boutique. That might be helpful.

"So.. Who are you?" He asked after getting up to throw away our trash.

I looked at him in shock. "I'm Lyra. Did you really forget that already?"

He laughed and laid on his back. "I meant who are you, as in where are you from? Where are you going? Basically what's your story?"

I laid next to him "Oh jeez, where do I begin?"

"Let's try at the beginning."

I took a deep breath, knowing this was going to take a long time.

"Well.. I am originally from Kastoria. A little town in Greece. I moved around a lot when I was younger before my parents finally decided to live in Larissa, where I have spent the last five years of my life. Of course since we were moving around so much meant that I had to go to a lot of different schools. And of course I would always move during the middle of the school year so I would be completely shut out by everyone. They all had their own little groups and I was hardly ever even spoke to, which didn't really bother me because I never knew what to say to people anyways. Everything was good until the last move. Me and my parents had always had a great relationship, but something happened. I don't know what it was but something changed. They started yelling at me. Blaming me for everything bad that would happen in our lives. I didn't know what to do so I always just stood there and took the blame. What else was I supposed to do? Then everything got worse... " I paused, holding back tears. Not wanting to say what happened afterwards.

"Hey, it's okay. You can tell me.." Elias wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into him.

"They.. They started hitting me. Not bad but sometimes it would leave bruises. People would ask what they were from so I would just say I was clumsy and I had fell and ran into something. But no one really found out what they were.. I had no friends at school and I didn't feel safe at home. So I decided to run. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't care. Then I came across the tree and the box. Then I found myself here. And well, you know the story from there."